Rose
by Midori-chan
Summary: (Ryuichi x Tohma) What's in the pages of Eiri's new book, Rose? No one knows but the author himself...and the story is about to be played out to horribly real imitations...


_Rose_

| Chapter 1 |

"Er…where's the concert hall again, na no da?"

          A cheery voice cut through the silence of the forest, as a cool wind whispered through the trees and ruffled a young man's fudge-coloured hair, tied back in a short ponytail.  He was wearing a white cut-off tank top, exposing his pierced navel and a good portion of his smooth, peach skin.  Shining armlets and sparkling bracelets adorned his skinny arms, as heavily ringed fingers gripped a soft, plushy pink rabbit.  His legs were encased in slick, black leather, all the way down to his insanely large four inch-heeled boots, glistening with buckles and belts all the way down his legs and strapped across his tiny waist.

          Ryuichi spun around in the dimming forest to face a pink-haired one gazing about into the forest's dark depths.  The other boy was dressed not unlike his friend—a tight black t-shirt with the words 'Spikey' emblazoned across it, and pale blue short shorts made up the other's outfit, along with his customary lemon yellow trenchcoat, winding about the boy suggestively in the breeze.

          "Shuu-chan~!" he called jovially, making the other boy start and blink at him with crystal-clear blue eyes.  He waved the bunny about wildly.  "Kumagorou has a questionn~!"

          Shuichi immediately appeared interested, tilting his head.  "Ara?  And what's that?"  He peered into the bunny's leaden eyes.

          "Where's the concert hall?"

          A facefault from Shuichi.  "Sakuma-san…I think you already asked that…" he mumbled from his place on the leaf-covered ground.

          "Uh-uh!  Kumagorou asked, not me, na no da!!" Ryuichi told him defensively, using a finger beset with jewels and silver to poke at Kumagorou's plushy face.

          Shuichi brought himself up to a sitting position, dusting his knees and boots off casually.  "Well… Sakuma-san and Kumagorou-kun…" he began uncertainly, "I'm not sure where the auditorium is."  With a sweatdrop, he added, "The only thing Sakano-san told me was it was around here, and it was by water."

          "Water?  Mizu?" Ryuichi asked curiously, helping Shuichi up with a hand, and then setting off to scour the area in search of water, forgetting he was still holding onto the pink-haired one.

          "Aaie!  Sakuma-san!" Shuichi 'eep'ed as he was dragged along by the spirited older boy.

          After about ten minutes of Ryuichi singing and Shuichi being dragged along for the ride, they arrived at a small stream dividing the forest in half with a trail of water and stones.

          "Yay!  Water!!" Ryuichi exclaimed, letting go of Shuichi to do a chibi victory dance with Kumagorou.  "Waterwaterwater—hey, where's the concert hall?"  He stopped dancing and stared at the stream, utterly perplexed.

          Shuichi sighed desolately, and ran a hand through his pink hair.  "Sakano-san said it would be by water, but which _kind_ of water?" he muttered miserably.  "The concert starts at…" he checked his watch, and immediately sprang into chibi-form, tears rolling down his face, "8:00!  And it's 7:30 now!  What are we going to do?"

          He was interrupted in his ranting by a suddenly calmed-down Ryuichi, staring at him through deep cerulean eyes.

          "You're starting to sound like Sakano-san, Shuu-chan!" he said, smiling widely.  "C'mon, we'll follow the stream the way the water runs.  We'll surely find more water that way, right?"  He paused, and then turned back to his own chibi-self again, handing Shuichi Kumagorou.  "It can be an adventure, na no da!!" he cried, as Shuichi caught the bunny in his hands, somewhat surprised.  By the time Shuichi had caught the pink rabbit, Ryuichi was already running off downstream.  The only sound he could hear was an "Adventure!  Adventurree~!  Na no da!" through the trees.

          "Oi, Sakuma-san!  Matteo!" Shuichi yelled, and ran after the retreating Ryuichi.

***

          "Ano…Eiri-san…" the young reporter paused in her rushed scrawl, tapping a pencil to the pad of paper she was writing on.

          "Hn?" a dispassionate voice replied, as the owner of the voice adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses mirroring cold, steel-grey eyes to the world.  Yuki Eiri leaned calmly back in his chair he was sitting in to glare at her more through his glasses.

          "Um…your new book… 'Rose,' is it?"

          "Hai."

          "What's the reason for you to release this book so soon?  In two days?"

          "There are certain people who should read it," he said in return, using his lighter that had a picture of him and Shuichi on it to light his cigarette, smoke drifting from his mouth languidly.

          "Certain people meaning…there are people who these main characters are modeled after?" the reporter pressed, seeing she was gaining some ground somewhere.

          "_Person_ or people," Yuki corrected her indifferently, flicking the ashes from his cigarette into an ornate ashtray set on the glass end table next to his chair.  "Perhaps.  But the fact that I modeled the characters after them would only be important to the people in question."  He calmly doused the reporter's eager flame.

          "Oh," the reporter answered, somewhat dejectedly.  "Alright, fine, onto the next question…"

***

          Once Shuichi had caught up with Ryuichi, he was red in the face and wearing a banana costume.

          "Sa…kuma…saaaan…" he heaved, before he expired right at the ecstatic boy's feet.

          "Oh!  Shuu…chan?" Ryuichi asked with the utmost curiosity, stopping in his quest to poke at the banana costume with a stick.  "Maa, Shuu-chan, get up!  We gotta go to the conncerrt~, na no da!"  At this, he began to hop up and down impatiently, brown ponytail bobbing in earnest.

          The banana-clad one raised his head slowly, leaves still clinging to the boy's forlorn face.  "Wahh, I want Yukiii…" he whined audibly, as Ryuichi stopped poking him with his stick and donned his curious expression once more.

          "Whyy~?  Eiri-san isn't here?" he asked innocently, tilting his head so his earrings caught the fading sun and sparkled with light.

          "Yeah…" Shuichi pouted, "He isn't here because he's talking with the press and his editor about producing his new book, Rose…"

          "Waaaai, a new book?  Really really?  What's it about, na no da?" he asked, stooping down to help the sulking boy up with a sparkling arm.

          "…I dunno…" the pink-haired one mumbled, "He usually tells me his stories, but this time, he said it was a secret…"  He folded his skinny arms over each other, and then suddenly bust out into tears.  "Naaazee~~??  Why won't he tell meee?!  Yuuuukiiiii…"

          Ryuichi turned his spotlight-strained eyes towards the falling orb in the sky, expression changing from curious to a rather serious expression for a man like himself, as if he were contemplating the questions of life through this glowing ball setting lower on the horizon.

          "…maybe it's about you?" he suggested, semi-audibly, thin lips barely moving to the words that were spoken.

          Seeing that the singer had changed tones, the pink-haired one quit his petulant whining and turned his glittering eyes towards the crimson horizon as well.  He broke the translucent illusion falling blanketing them with a curt laugh.

          "Yuki doesn't write about me…he doesn't even talk about me…" he spoke softly, tears pooling in the corners of his topaz eyes.  The moment where Ryuichi stood silent, listening to the taciturn whispers of the trees and the sounds of Shuichi coughing on sobs seemed to last forever, until he turned his face towards the suddenly distraught vocalist, sun permeating his chocolate hair and making him seem as if he were a saint with a golden halo about his head.  His cheeks were laced with the most understanding, sincere smile one could ever possibly create with simple human expressions, and his eyes, aglow with an implicit merriment that seemed to be only for the boy staring at him in front of him.

          "I was in a meeting with Seguchi-san," he began, almost as if he were telling Shuichi his life's secrets, "and Eiri-san.  He said--"

          At this point, Ryuichi assumed a defiant stance, one where he was glaring down gleefully into Shuichi's wide cerulean eyes, as he used a fake, monotone voice, " 'This new novel I'm writing will be phenomenal.  I can't tell Shuichi because…he'll know too much about it.  I don't want him to…' and I said…" he assumed his normal, excited tone, " 'It's about him, isn't it?!  About Shuu-chan??' and he got really really mad at me for some reason, and hit me across the face!"

          Ryuichi said this in a voice that almost led Shuichi to believe his lover had actually offered him an ice-cream cone instead of smacking him upside the head like he had all too many times experienced.

          As the chocolate-haired one chattered on about the hit to his face, one sentence perked Shuichi's ears—

          "…and Seguchi-san got really mad too, and he started yelling at Eiri-san about my face, and how he was going to ruin it—that I had a performance in three hours and he didn't want some nasty bruise on my face…"

          That was odd, the pink-haired one thought to himself.  The producer of NG usually thought in businessman's terms—screw everyone before they screw you.  It was odd that he paid such particular interest in Ryuichi's face, however true his statement may be about the singer's face getting marred.  The rock star he was standing next to was obviously worth millions, and it was only natural that Tohma would be aware of his worth as a business asset…

          Another sparkling glint from his bejeweled ears, and Ryuichi was staring back at the dim sliver of the light falling fast over a dark, painted line in the sky.

          "…I cost Seguchi-san too much money.  He says that, and then says that every minute I'm late, I cost him another hundred thousand dollars.  I say sorry, but he doesn't like me to say that either…"

          Shuichi listened as Ryuichi's pointless rant died down with the sun, eyes cleared of their former tears, and narrowed in the utmost trepidation.  Funny…he'd never listened to Ryuichi when he was like this…

          Then again, he was almost never around the singer when he was in one of his 'moods'.

          His 'moods', as Shuichi called them, were those that differed from the singer's normal, sporadic, chibi-Ryuichi self.  From what he heard from the years he'd spent idolizing the man, there were times when his psychological behaviour completely slanted and a new entity would emerge from his enigma of personalities—one that was neither happy nor mirthful as the rock star usually was.  It was difficult, with the constant transitions from mood to mood, to actually figure out what Ryuichi's true feelings were, Shuichi admitted.  Yet, these problems could all be overlooked by the fact that the chocolate-haired one was usually in a perpetual state of happiness, and that no one in the press had discovered (or, as the pink-haired one thought, just had never thought anything of) Ryuichi's multiple personalities.  As long as he remained unshaken from the world outside him, and nothing in the man had snapped, he could remain in his personal world of serene insanity.

          He was interrupted by a bejeweled finger pushing his nose up into a pig snout.

          "Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuichi~~" Ryuichi giggled in a singsong voice.  "Shuuuuichi, wake up~!"  After releasing his finger from Shuichi's nose, he proceeded to dance about in the golden-tipped leaves, belts and bangles clinking together in a sparkling silver harmony as white stars began to fleck the dark velvet sky.  Shuichi suppressed a soft laugh, cerulean eyes glinting with admiration as he forgot his previous thoughts, and began to walk further down the stream of water guiding them ever-nearer to their desired destination.

***

          "Where is he?!?!"

          Tohma's voice stood out from all the other errant voices in the conference room—soft, but dangerously livid.  His blue-green eyes shot around the table to Noriko, curling her lavender hair with a painted finger.

          "I dunno, Seguchi-san," she replied hastily, almost as if she were trying to ward off his rising contempt with her words.  "Shuichi and he said they were heading towards the concert hall at six."

          The blonde-haired one turned his fury towards the ceiling, and, heaving an exasperated sigh, settled back into his chair silently to stare out from under his black beret in frustration.  Shuichi's fellow members of Bad Luck were seated adjacent from him, nervously exchanging glances and praying that the man seated across from them wouldn't turn on them next for venting his rage.  K was standing a silent vigil besides the door, viewing the world around him through darkened lenses as he polished his gun nonchalantly with his business-like button-up shirt.  His eyes traveled to the seething man at the end of the table, and a slight frown of displeasure graced his stoic face.

          "Calm down, Seguchi-san."

          He spoke in broken English to the blonde-haired one, baffling the Bad Luck members and Noriko at the same time as sound emerged from his lips into the desolate room once more.  Tohma's electric eyes shot up to meet K's cool blue ones, as the blonde's mouth tightened in displeasure, and he stood up curtly and snapped succinctly, "I wouldn't say that if I were you."

          Then, he left the room, designer boots clicking petulantly against the tile of NG-studios.

***

          The last glints of golden had disappeared from the tips of the leaves, leaving an afterglow about the edges of the trees, slowly becoming taken over by the darkness of the night.  The pink-haired boy was still tightly holding the other's stuffed plush and gazing out into the starry night, worry creasing his mouth into a small frown.

          He checked his watch.

          "7:56…" he muttered in a pseudo-wail, words catching on the edges and making it seem as if his voice box had been through the washer one too many times and was ragged and torn from overuse.  "Maaa…"

          He was caught in a swoop of Ryuichi's arm and nearly clobbered to death by the dancing vocalist, as the chocolate-haired one's voice reached out to touch the stars in a hauntingly distant melody.

_"Tooku de me o hikarasete…mezameru monotachi matte iru~"_

          "Yoru no jouheki sasowarete…" 

          "Why are _you_ so happy?" Shuichi quipped with a friendly, yet underneath worried glare, tossing the pink bunny playfully at the singer, whereupon the plush contacted the boy's hands, as Ryuichi caught his flying friend gracefully in mid-air and spun around with it recklessly.  He began to talk to Kumagorou as he swung the bunny around happily.

          "Wahh~, because I wanna enjoy my last concert here!  With you, and K-chan, and Seguchi-san, and Tatsuha--"

          He was cut off abruptly by Shuichi staring at him in consternation, blue eyes narrow, trying to figure out the hidden meaning of the singer's words.

          "…Last…concert?"

          The singer nodded vehemently, as if he were trying to shake an animal that had clung to his fudge-colored hair.  "Yes, yes~" he sang, as his happiness stained with strains of sadness intermingled into a dissonant chord of a voice.  "K-san said in two days I'm going to go back the States, because he thinks my career over there is better…"

          "Back…to the States?!?" the Bad Luck vocalist mouthed, eyes widening in incredulous scrutiny.  "You can't be serious!!  Th-that means…"

          Ryuichi cut him off, as he tilted his head, precariously balancing it upon one shoulder, his eyes a little glazed over from the starlight shining through them.

          "Nittle Grasper is breaking up again."

          Birds rose from the trees in a sudden start as the pink-haired one screeched at the top of his lungs, "NAAAAAAAAAAA~NIIIIIIIII?!?!?"  He broke down into a fit of cries, tumultuous words tumbling from his lips as he grabbed onto Ryuichi's many-belted legs.

          "Thatcan'tbewhyareyoudoingthisIdon'twantyoutoleeeeeaaaveee…" he blurted out, "Ryuuuiiichiii…you're my idol, you can't just break up Nittle Grasper!  You were the one who wanted it in the first place, right?!  What are you doing then leaving??"

          "K-san said…"

          The anguish was dripping through the boy's plastic smiles and onto the leaf-covered ground, pooling around him and the other boy clinging to his legs.

          "K-san said this would be the best for me… he's only looking out for me, na?"

          Shuichi was barely listening to his words—all he could think about was why he was leaving so _soon_, and so suddenly.  Why did K want to take Ryuichi away from the people here that…

          _…Loved…him…?_

          He lifted his head to stare at Ryuichi, who was smiling down at him blankly, with a picture of assurance painted across his pale face, and remembered…the TV interview he had seen that morning with Yuki about his book.

          _Two days._

_          The book was going to be released in two days._

_"There are certain people who should read it."_

Shuichi found his mind wandering as to why exactly Yuki had never told him the story plot like he usually had in his novels before.  Whether it was through his own whining or Yuki's off-hand indifferent comments, he had always got the information he desired on the novelist's new storylines or characters, but this time—this time was different…

          "Yuuki!  Come to bed!  It's laaa~te~…"

          "I have to get 200 pages completed by tomorrow."

          "Oooh… what are you working on, Yuuukiii…?"

          "Nothing."

          "…don't tell me that…"

          "Shuichi, quit it."

          "C'mooonn, Yuuuukiiii…"

          "No."

          "Pleeeeeeeaaa--"

          "You'll see when it comes out."

          His eyes cleared to see the scintillating boy standing in front of him, eyes dark and glistening like the stars spattered carelessly across the sky.

          "My music…it's for my music…" he breathed out of sedentary lips, a smile breaking harshly through on his pallid complexion.  "K-san knows that.  Noriko-san knows that…"

          "Does Seguchi-san know that?"

          Shuichi regretted the words as soon as he blurted them out of his immature mouth.  Ryuichi shot a stoic stare at him, the liquid in his eyes mirroring the sparkling lights above in tiny flecks upon the smooth, glassy surface of his iris.

          "…how would you know."

          The words came cold and clear, not from Ryuichi—but some other being using the oblivious boy as a simple guise.  The terse words cut through the night sky and made the pink-haired one step back slightly from the other.  Shuichi blinked for a moment, and then asked, "Excuse me?"

          "I said, 'how would you know'?  You don't know the first thing about Seguchi-san—he's only in NG for the money…" he trailed off sadly before adding in a smooth, assured voice, "And K-san is only doing this for my own good…"

          The Bad Luck vocalist closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were committing those words to memory, and spoke, softly, almost apprehensively, as he took a courageous step towards Ryuichi.

          "Your face…" he responded carefully, "…is worth more to him than any form of money."

          Shock from Ryuichi.  The man raised an eyebrow slowly, not speaking, but still daring the young star to continue in his speech.

          "You know that.  He knows that.  Yuki knows that.  And K-san knows that also--"

          "Which is why he's taking you back to the States."

          Silence, again.  The young man was gazing defiantly over at Shuichi, as if he was about to object to the whole idea, to claim it preposterous, but strangely still—he listened.  With eyes set intensely upon Shuichi, and rigid body frozen in suspended animation—he listened to him.

          "Yuki never told me what _Rose_ is about—but I know.  K-san planned to leave with you in two days right?  Two days is when _Rose_ is coming out.  Yuki wrote about--"

          "I know.  I know what he's been writing."  The succinct statement sliced Shuichi's sentence in half.  Ryuichi raised his head to the silent shine of the sky, as Shuichi caught a glimpse of a tiny rivulet trailing down his cheek.  "Do you think I'm blind to what's happening here?"

          "Well…I…"

          "I still think you should talk to Tohma!  Even if you _do _decide to leave, he should know, too!" Shuichi yelled, not even noticing a figure from the shadows becoming more and more preeminent in the light of the stars.

          "But…"

          "He _deserves_ to know."

          Their conversation was cut short by a ball of high-speed energy whizzing between the two of them, as the quickly converging particles formed the shape of Bad Luck's manager.

          "SHUICHIwherehaveyoutwobeenIwasworriedoutofmy…MINNND!!!" the worked up man sputtered, clinging to Shuichi's legs and sobbing into his bare calves.  A chibi expression claimed the once-serious faces of Shuichi and Ryuichi, as the pink-haired one sweatdropped and the fudge-haired one beamed with amusement.

          "Sakano-saaan!" he yelled, two drawn circles of joy appearing upon his winsome face.  "What are _you_ doing here, na no da?"

          "The question is what are _you_ doing here, Sakuma-san!!" Sakano spluttered, out of breath from his obvious hyperventilation about the two.  "You're _both_ late for the concert!"

          "Huuwahh!  You're right!!"  Shuichi feigned dismay shot a glare to Sakuma-san, whose dark azure eyes were blinking up curiously at the stars again.  "We'd better go, hm?  Is Nittle Grasper going to play before us?"  Whether the question was directed to either Sakano-san ore Ryuichi was unsure as his voice lingered for a moment in the looming trees above.

          "No," Ryuichi responded, smile dead-set upon his face in a defiant gesture against Shuichi, "I'm going to talk to Seguchi-san first."


End file.
